


Staircase Anomalies

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Humor, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-14
Updated: 2009-03-14
Packaged: 2019-01-19 19:27:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12416520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: Lily Evans is quite frustrated, and those Hogwarts staircases don't help one bit.  Add a slew of characters to make for a . . .periloussituation.  Rated for language (and a thoroughly-pissed-off Lily).





	Staircase Anomalies

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

Lily Evans, sixth-year Gryffindor prefect, prided herself in the knowledge that she had never been tricked by one of Hogwarts’ aptly-named trick stairs.

First-year students at the school were rarely told about these steps, which looked like regular stairs but would vanish once one placed a foot on them. These steps had led to many a student over the years being stuck until help came along. The older students hesitated to mention these vanishing steps to the First Years for a variety of reasons (depending on the older student in question): including, but not limited to, a desire for the firsties to be just as humiliated as the older students once were in their younger years; a sadistic pleasure obtained from seeing small, helpless eleven-year-olds crying for help; pure forgetfulness (Frank Longbottom, an absent-minded yet talented boy who had graduated a few years ago and could hardly be called sadistic, currently held the Hogwarts record for number of times being stuck in trick stairs); inherent laziness; et cetera.

Thus, when Lily Evans (the aforementioned sixth-year Gryffindor prefect) had arrived at Hogwarts, she had no idea that these trick stairs existed, not to mention the fact that Hogwarts contained approximately one hundred and forty-two staircases which often changed just because, say, it was a Friday, or it was raining outside. First Year Lily had soon discovered that the staircases changed; once, her entire Transfiguration class had been late to class (save for Alberta Vance, but she was another story) when they had all gotten caught on a moving staircase. But Lily, whether by luck or by intrinsic resourcefulness (she preferred to think it was the latter) had never been stuck in a vanishing step. She had seen many classmates fall prey to the trick stairs, of course. And Lily, being the sixth-year Gryffindor prefect that she was, had helped countless students out of these steps. But Lily was secretly very proud of the fact that she had never been unlucky enough (or forgetful enough) to be fooled by the staircases of Hogwarts.

It was late on a muggy afternoon when Lily Evans, sixth-year Gryffindor prefect who happened to be very frustrated at the moment, left the prefects’ bathroom on the fifth floor. She passed the state of Boris the Bewildered, and it must be noted that Miss Evans was so very frustrated that she did not even stop, as she often did, to wonder why Boris was so Bewildered in the first place. Heaving a great sigh, she started up the staircase at a moderate pace so that she would arrive in her dormitory in time to discuss the day’s events (and oh, what horrendously frustrating events they were!) with her friends before dinner. Lily’s thoughts, as she traveled up the stairs, were focused on her previously-mentioned frustrations; however, she would still have made it up the staircase completely fine, reflexively stepping over the trick step as was her custom.

But alas, this was not to be – Lily’s plans were thwarted when, on the step below this trick step, she felt something clamp around her ankle. It must be admitted that Lily, sixth-year Gryffindor prefect though she was, let out an almighty shriek at this ankle-clamping. Lily looked down and was, perhaps somewhat pathetically, not as surprised as she should probably have been to see James Potter’s entirely-too-familiar face grinning up at her.

_Merlin,_ thought Lily _, if there’s one thing I hate about James Potter it’s that insolent grin of his. He always looks like such a bloody buffoon, no wonder I get that impulse to slap him so frequently._

Then she thought, _why the hell is James Potter’s face grinning up at me?_ Which, for being a sixth-year Gryffindor prefect, should have been Lily’s first logical thought. But when it came to James Potter (who, incidentally, was the source of Lily’s frustrations that afternoon _and_ the cause of the irritating events of her day), Lily’s thoughts were rarely logical.

Since Lily was the type of person who thought before she spoke but never thought _too much_ before she spoke, she voiced her thoughts aloud.

"Potter, why the hell are you grinning up at me like that?"

James’s ridiculous grin got even wider, if that was possible. "No reason," he replied, annoyingly casually.

Lily’s gaze traveled down to her ankles, where she registered that James’s hand was clamped. Her eyes traveled back to the obnoxious face one step above. "I will thank you to please remove your hand from my tibia, if it’s not too much trouble," remarked Lily in a dangerously calm tone. She smirked inwardly, because James should have known by then that when Lily spoke in dangerously calm tones, it never meant well for him.

"Nah, it is too much trouble, actually, so I guess I’ll just leave it here." Potter shrugged his shoulders, which is when Lily realised that his grinning face and shoulders were all of James Potter that she could see.

Despite herself, Lily laughed. "You fell into the trick stair, didn’t you?" Without waiting for a response (which most likely, like the question, would have been redundant), Lily continued, "Of course you, of all people, would still be falling into trick stairs after almost six years here."

James visibly bristled, and his hold on her ankle got even tighter. "Hey, I’ll have you know that this is the first time I’ve ever fallen into one of these, thank you very much."

If it had been anyone else, Lily would have probably already helped the person out of the stair and quelled all superior remarks. But, as we have already established, Lily did not think nor act logically when it came to James.

So Lily raised her eyebrows and smirked superciliously. "Well, _I_ , unlike _you_ , have _never_ fallen into one of those. Therefore, _I_ , unlike _you_ , will now be continuing up the stairs right now when you let my ankle go-whoah!"

Now, Lily was not accustomed to pronouncing the word "go" with two syllables. However, when extremely taken aback or surprised, everyone is prone to emit exclamations such as, "Whoah!"

And Lily was, in this particular moment, quite taken aback _and_ surprised. This taken-aback-ness and surprise were due to the fact that James had just given an immense tug on her ankle and used his other hand to pull her down into the vanishing stair with him.

… _silence_. Complete and utter silence for approximately sixteen point five seconds while James stared at Lily, confused, his faltering grin frozen in place. Lily, on the other hand, after her initial shock, showed absolutely no emotion whatsoever. Her face was completely blank.

Then, after approximately sixteen point five seconds, that is, Lily’s almond-shaped green eyes narrowed. "Potter?" she spat out, saying the name like it was the most disgusting thing on the planet (which, to her, at that moment, it probably was).

James gulped. "Y-y-yes, Evans?"

She narrowed her eyes further. He gulped a second time and began choking on his own saliva.

Lily really wasn’t quite in the mood to save James from choking at that exact moment in time; actually, a voice in her head was cheering loudly for James’s saliva, which, after all, seemed to be on her side (the Good Side) in this utterly horrid situation.

"You pulled me into the trick stair," stated Lily, surprisingly calmly and matter-of-factly, given the time and place. She was using that dangerously calm tone again, which we have established does not bode well for a certain Mr. James Potter.

James leaned back a little from her, seemingly instinctively. He didn’t say anything and suddenly, Lily snapped.

"You fucking idiot! You pulled me into the trick stair! What the hell were you thinking, Potter?" Lily was absolutely livid and James was, well, most probably scared out of his mind, if the sudden sweat that broke out on his brow was any indication.

James couldn’t seem to find his voice. "Uh, I . . ." he said hoarsely.

Lily emitted a noise under her breath that sounded suspiciously like a growl. "I cannot believe you. I just cannot believe you! Now we’re both stuck in here! Did you ever think of that? No, of course you didn’t. How could you think? You obviously haven’t got a brain, you certainly don’t act like you do."

During Lily’s little tirade, James had been watching her as a cornered antelope might watch a lion who was about to pounce. After a somewhat lengthy pause in which Lily seemed to be gathering the copious amounts of breath she had just used up in shouting at him, and without having perished at the hands of the adolescent girl facing him, James ventured to speak.

"Yeah, well, I s’pose it was a bit stupid." He said this hesitantly and carefully, as if to judge the mood.

Lily took a deep, heaving breath, and willed herself not to blow up from vehement fury on the spot. _What the bloody fucking hell did I do to deserve this_ , she thought to herself. _What the bloody fucking damn fucking hell did I do to deserve James fucking Potter_.

" _A bit_ stupid? _A bit_ stupid? Oh, ho!, Potter, I think this is pretty far beyond _a bit stupid_. If stupid were in France, a bit stupid would be somewhere in Hogsmeade. But what you just did is most likely somewhere in Australia or America or Antarctica or anywhere extremely far away where I would much rather be right now than stuck in this trick step with you." Lily shook her head at the utter ridiculousness of the situation. _Only Potter_ , she thought, _only Potter could be such a fuck-up on a regular day-to-day basis_.

James flashed her another one of his sickening grins. "I hear they have penguins in Antarctica," he said. "You know, those funny-looking birds who look like they’re wearing suits?"

"Ugh!" screamed Lily, who was positively fuming by this point. "Yes, I know what penguins are. But I fail to see how they relate even remotely to the situation we find ourselves in at present. Which, I might add, is a _very pressing situation_." Lily noticed as she said this that she was a little too pressed up against James for her liking. Knowing James, he would probably take that unintentional wordplay as a sign that Lily was suddenly and inexplicably in love with him and felt the need to start spouting innuendoes. Luckily for Lily, though, she was saved from James thinking any such things and the disturbing events that would follow by his pitifully one-track mind, which, at the moment, seemed to be focused entirely on penguins.

James shook his head. "No, Evans, it actually relates really importantly to this situation. See, you said you’d rather be in Antarctica than here, and I thought that you should know that if you were in Antarctica, you would have to watch out for the penguins."

Lily raised her eyebrows, thoroughly unimpressed.

James swallowed. "And, erm, you know, penguins can be very . . . violent," he attempted. He nodded vigorously. "Yeah, er, really violent. You’re better off staying away from that lot, yeah? You never know with penguins. They might try to, er . . . stampede you!"

Letting out a dry laugh, Lily suddenly stopped laughing, abruptly and menacingly. "But do you think penguins would pull me into a trick stair with them?"

James shifted his eyes guiltily. "I’m sorry, Evans. I didn’t mean to."

Lily had to laugh at that one. But it wasn’t an amused, oh-aren’t-we-having-so-much-fun sort of laugh. No, this laugh was a derisive laugh of disbelief. "You _didn’t mean to_? How the hell can you pull me into a trick stair without meaning to?"

"I did, I mean, I didn’t, I mean, I really didn’t mean to do it. It’s just, you looked so frustrated, and you were being really annoying for a minute there, so I thought I’d get you to loosen up and maybe give you something else to think about for a few minutes."

Lily closed her eyes and started counting to ten while taking a deep, cleansing breath. She’d read in Mary’s _Witch Weekly_ that deep, cleansing breaths were good for situations that were very taxing (such as this one). However, Lily had never exactly been known for her patience and she hadn’t made it past four when her eyelids flew open and she sneered at James, "Well, it’s going to be a bit more than a _few minutes_ , don’t you think? Seeing as we’ve already been here for a while and we’re basically stuck here until someone comes along to help us. Assuming that actually happens." She looked pointedly at James when she said this, as if to convey to him the precariousness of their situation. "And what if no one comes along to help us? Then we’ll be stuck here all night."

At this, James brightened considerably and looked as if he’d just realised it was his birthday. The good feeling, however, was short-lived, as Lily glared ferociously at him just then.

"You probably planned this whole thing, didn’t you? Oh, I can’t _believe_ this!"

At some point, James had stopped listening to Lily, and his gaze was now focused on a spot somewhere past her head. Lily tried to turn around, but, as stuck as she was, she wasn’t, much to her chagrin, able to move much at all.

James seemed to suddenly spring to life. "Jugson, hey, Jugson! Up here!"

Lily twisted and squirmed in further attempts to turn around and see. James noticed this, for he glanced down at her with a strange look on his face, but then turned his attention back to, apparently, Jugson.

Finally, Lily gave up trying to turn around to see what was behind her. "Jugson?" she asked.

"Yeah, he’s coming up the stairs," James replied. "Jugson! I know you hear me! Help us out, would you?"

_Jugson, hmm,_ Lily thought _,_ running the name through her mind _. Who was Jugson again?_ She ran through her mental list of everyone at Hogwarts she had ever known or heard of. Oh! Jugson was a Slytherin Second Year; a small, scrawny boy whose cousin had been in Seventh Year when Lily was in First. The older Jugson, who had also been a Slytherin, was definitely no friend of muggle-borns, as he had made clear when he had hexed First Year Lily to trip and fall, not to mention sprout tentacles all over her face. Lily hadn’t seen much of this younger Jugson, but she hoped to Merlin that he wasn’t like his cousin.

"Er, Jugson?" Lily said, trying to sound sweet and calm. "As you can probably see, we’re in a bit of a predicament here. I hope it wouldn’t be too much trouble for you to, well, help us out a little?"

Apparently Jugson was awfully slow in coming up the stairs, because James quickly leaned in to her ear and whispered. "No, Evans, you don’t know this kid. Being nice won’t work with him, he thinks he’s a bloody prince, the way he walks around this school. You’ve got to be firm and authoritative with him."

Lily rolled her eyes. "Potter, we don’t want to scare him off. No, we should be nice so that he’ll actually help us instead of getting mad and leaving us here."

She tried again. "Jugson? We would really appreciate it if you could help us here. You see, this is not how I, at least, planned to spend my evening," here she shot a well-placed glare at James, "and your help would be . . . greatly rewarded." Lily had a sudden stroke of genius. "How does twenty points to Slytherin sound?"

Lily had been talking loudly, not knowing how far off Jugson actually was. Apparently, she hadn’t needed to talk so loudly, at least in the last few moments of her plea for help, because when she had finished offering the boy house points, she tilted her head back and saw the twelve-year-old’s smirking face peering down at James and her.

"Oh," exclaimed Lily, summoning an awkward smile.

The boy called Jugson stroked his chin in a way that was completely haughty and obnoxious. Under any other condition, Lily would have lost her patience with the boy almost immediately (she could tell he was going to be a trial to deal with). However, she mentally warned herself that she had to keep her temper with this boy. He was, after all, her only shot at salvation.

(Lily internally wondered when the hell her life had gone so far down the drain, for her to have to be considering an annoying little Slytherin boy the source of her salvation. But at present, she really hadn’t the time for such inane wonderings. Back to the matter at hand!)

"Hmmmmmm," said Jugson, drawing out the sound much longer than necessary. "What an _intriguing_ offer." Lily had to restrain herself from rolling her eyes. The little prat’s voice was disgustingly arrogant and pompous. Lily supposed that pureblood families must give their children speaking lessons, or something, to ensure that all of their precious pureblood offspring sounded just as haughty in conversation as they themselves did. (Lily wasn’t prejudiced against purebloods at all, really, but she even knew herself that when she was angry, her thoughts weren’t always the best toward whoever was causing her that anger.)

She forced a smile, hoping to Merlin that the boy would just get on with it.

After what Lily supposed was meant to be a nerve-wracking pause for James and her, Jugson deigned to continue. "Twenty points to Slytherin _does_ sound like a nice reward . . . " Another weighty pause. ". . . but, on the whole, I think it would be much more rewarding to me to leave you two here to battle it out with each other. I think I’d get a fairly good laugh out of it, don’t you?" The insufferable boy smirked and seemed ready to continue on up the stairs.

After all that Lily had been through that day, she was not about to let Jugson get away like that. In fact, Jugson, was lifting his right foot and was beginning to step over James and Lily. In desperation, Lily quickly grabbed his leg to stop him.

What happened next was all a bit of a blur. A very _painful_ blur, that is. Somehow, Lily’s grabbing of Jugson’s leg caused him to be dragged down into the trick step with James and Lily. Jugson’s other leg, however, was a big slow on the uptake, and the whole affair resulted with the boy’s left shoe coming into very intimate contact with Lily’s right eye.

"Fuck!" cried James, who had been pushed to the side of the vanishing step by Jugson’s careening body, and was now at a very odd angle with Jugson somewhat on top of him and Lily much farther away from him than she had been previously.

"Fuck!" cried Lily, who had never gotten a black eye before but figured that she should have been much more thankful for that in the past, as her left eye was now throbbing with pain.

"Fuck!" cried Jugson, who had just ended up (though no fault of his own really, except being in the wrong place at the wrong time and being quintessentially Slytherin) stuck in a Hogwarts trick step with two sixth-year Gryffindors to whom he hadn’t exactly endeared himself recently. (Incidentally, this was Jugson’s first time being stuck in one of the trick stairs as well.)

Lily gasped and turned to face Jugson, shocked. "Twelve-year-olds shouldn’t be using that kind of language!"

Jugson spluttered and glared at her. "Well, er, you’re a prefect! What kind of example are you setting for the rest of the school, hmm?’

"Hmmph," Lily huffed, incredibly incensed at having been out-manoeuvred by a second-year.

"Er, hello?" said James impatiently, squashed as he was over in the corner. "We seem to have bigger problems at the moment than what kind of language you two should and should not be using.

Lily’s eyes did that intimidating narrowing thing again, and she whipped her head even more to the side to glare at him. "And who do you think got us into this mess in the first place? Well, it wasn’t Elladora Ketteridge, I can tell you that much!"

James wrinkled his eyebrows. "Elladora Ketteridge?"

"Oh, she’s the one who discovered gillyweed. She actually ate it and then practically suffocated, but she-," here Lily stopped herself. "Ugh, stop trying to distract me! _You’re_ the one who got us into this mess, James Potter! If it weren’t for you, I would be relaxed and in my dormitory, calmly contemplating today and life in a yogalike position! And I’m fairly certain that where I am right now and what I’m doing is the EXACT OPPOSITE of that scenario, wouldn’t you agree?"

Jugson raised his eyebrows, impressed. "Whoa, she can really yell, that one, can’t she?" he remarked to James.

James looked at the boy. "You have no idea," he replied wearily.

They had all three of them been distracted by Lily’s diatribe, and were therefore all fairly surprised when a new voice came from behind Lily.

"Oh- _ho_! No one told _me_ about the party in the trick step!"

Lily let out an audible groan. There was really no one she’d less rather see right now than –

"Padfoot!" exclaimed James jovially. "D’you think you could – "

James was abruptly cut off when his idiotic best friend, Sirius Black, did the absolute dumbest possible thing anyone in this situation could have done: _he,_ of his own accord _, jumped into the trick stair with the other three._

Lily took a deep breath. "WHAT THE BLOODY HELL WAS THAT?! Sirius Black, are you bloody out of your mind? No, don’t answer that. You could’ve helped us all out. But, no, that would be a much too rational option for you, wouldn’t it? You always have to consider all the possible courses of action and then choose the FUCKING MOST IDIOTIC OF THE BUNCH, don’t you?!"

Infuriatingly, Sirius grinned and glanced over Lily and Jugson to James, who cracked a wry smile. "So nice of you to drop in, Padfoot."

Sirius shrugged. "Well, you know I’m bored when I have to come down to this one’s," here he jerked a finger at Lily, "level."

"You have always been known to jump right into the fun, though," replied James.

"Enough with the puns!" cried Lily, shooting death glares at the two most maddening Marauders. "And here I thought this day couldn’t get any worse."

Jugson, the little twerp, apparently decided it was his turn to add an asinine comment into the mix. "Well, _my_ day was going perfectly fine until I had the misfortune to be _manhandled_ ," he shot a death glare of his own at Lily here, "into a trick step with a bunch of blood traitors and mud-"

James turned on the boy so fast that even Lily and Sirius started in surprise. "Don’t even _think_ about finishing that word," snarled James.

Jugson recovered from his initial shock and raised his eyebrows defiantly at James. "I don’t really think you’re in a position to be making any very effective threats right now," said the boy in his pretentious manner. Lily and Sirius looked at each other. This Jugson boy was certainly brave, they would give him that.

"Be that as it may," replied James, "when we get _out_ . . ." he trailed off suggestively and shot Jugson a menacing look.

The boy seemed to suppress a gulp.

"When we get out," echoed Lily, laughing derisively. "When we get out!" She was beginning to sound a bit crazy, she knew, and the boys were looking at each other warily, but she didn’t really care by then. "We’ve already been stuck in here for ages, and I’ve practically lost all hope that we’re _ever_ going to get out of this stupid step!"

"Hey now," said Sirius disappointedly. "I thought this was supposed to be a party!"

Lily whirled about to glare at him once again. "You’d do well to cease and desist with the talking, Black."

Sirius smirked at her. "Or what, Ev?"

Again with the threatening Narrowing of the Eyes. "Or I will, swear to Merlin, find a way to rupture your eardrums with the sheer decibels of my voice. Which will involve, on my part, a lot of yelling. And screaming. And shouting. And shrieking at high-pitched frequencies. Directly into your ear."

Sirius gulped palpably.

"And on _your_ part," Lily continued, "there will be involved a lot of hearing loss." She paused for a long while. The other three were too terrified to say anything.

Suddenly and without warning, Lily stuck her mouth right next to Sirius’ ear and shrieked, "DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?!"

James and Jugson winced. Sirius seemed to be temporarily disabled, but he promptly recovered. "Fuck, Merlin, yes," he whispered hoarsely. He scrunched up his eyes. "Oww."

-;-;-;-;-;-

Three hours later, the situation of Lily Evans, still a sixth-year Gryffindor prefect, albeit a thoroughly frustrated and infuriated sixth-year Gryffindor prefect, had not gotten much better. On the contrary, it had gotten worse, if that was even possible.

But it was. The collection of Hogwarts students stuck in the trick stair now included, in addition to Lily, James, Sirius, and Jugson, two fourth-year Hufflepuff girls of decidedly low intelligence levels, who had delightedly jumped into the stair upon seeing Sirius trapped there; and a painfully shy first-year Ravenclaw by the name of Beatrice Cuffe, who had accidentally fallen into the step while over-exerting herself to pull Lily out.

By this point, Lily felt that she now truly knew what hell was like. The two Hufflepuff girls kept giggling inanely and trying to talk to Sirius, who, Lily noted with some happiness, looked extremely uncomfortable. James would alternately laugh at Sirius’ predicament, glare at Jugson, and stare at Lily. Lily, for her part, tried occasionally to chat with Beatrice, but Lily’s patience had run extremely thin and mostly she found that she could only close her eyes and pretend that this was all a horrible nightmare, from which she would soon wake up and head down to the Great Hall to have kippers.

One of the two Hufflepuffs (who were surprisingly difficult to tell apart) was currently keeping up her incessant giggling while trying to get Sirius to look at her. "Sirius? Oh, Sirius?" she sing-songed sickeningly. Jugson was droning on about the superiority of Slytherin house to anyone who would listen, but the only ones he was getting much reaction from were James, who attempted to shoot the boy periodic death glares but was rather unsuccessful (James, unlike some others, just did not have the knack for death glares), and Beatrice, who was listening to Jugson with wide eyes and a frightened look on her small face. Lily supposed she’d have to explain to Beatrice later that everything Jugson was saying was complete and utter bollocks, but she didn’t quite feel up to it at the moment.

Suddenly, an authoritative voice cut through the air. "What on earth has happened here?" Lily’s eyes flew open, as she was hoping against hope that she had just heard the voice from behind her that she thought she did.

"Professor McGonagall!" exclaimed Lily, who had perhaps never been so happy to see (or rather, hear) her Transfiguration teacher as she was at that exact moment. The students facing Lily (James, Jugson, and the two Hufflepuff girls) all changed facial expressions suddenly. James and Jugson both looked enormously happy to see the woman, while the Hufflepuffs both looked thoroughly put-out.

But Lily didn’t really care how any of them felt at the moment. She was finally about to be free!

"Oh, Professor, it’s a terribly long story, but do you think you might be able to –"

"Help you out of there?" asked McGonagall. "Well, of course." Lily felt the professor reach down under her shoulders and brace herself. "Come on, then, Miss Evans."

After a brief struggle, Lily was out of the stair. _Finally_ , she thought. _Thank you, Merlin_. She resisted the urge to turn on the spot and flee the scene, but instead turned to McGonagall, who was looking sternly at Lily and the rest of the students still in the stair.

"You lot have a fair bit of explaining to do, once you’re all out of there."

-;-;-;-;-;-

After much toil and a few raised voices, Lily and McGonagall had managed to get the rest of the students out of the stair. Lily, being the sixth-year Gryffindor prefect that she was, took it upon herself to explain to the professor just how the situation had unfolded, leaving out the majority of the sordid details and attempting to present a logical, clear-cut (albeit far-from-the-truth) story of how seven students had all ended up in the same trick step. However, this straight-to-the-point version of things was rather difficult to present, due to the unwanted interruptions coming from all other parties involved (except, of course, Beatrice, who was too shy to say much of anything, and the Hufflepuffs, who were hanging on Sirius’ arms and gazing at him with the proverbial stars in their eyes).

Finally, it seemed that McGonagall had had it. "Enough!" she shouted. "I simply do not see how it is possible that Mr. Black could have tripped, jumped in to retrieve his fallen Potions book, and been chased by a pack of manticores all at the same time, but I suppose I shall have to let this particular incident go without docking points from all of the houses."

"But –" spluttered Jugson, who looked indignant, "-you’re just saying that because you’re head of Gryffindor! If you did take an equal number of points from everyone here, Gryffindor would lose the most points because there’s three Gryffindors!" He took a breath, before muttering to himself, "Besides, that’s how it should be, seeing as it was Evans who pulled me in in the first place."

"That is quite enough, Mr. Jugson," said McGonagall sharply. "Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do. It would be in your," here she paused and looked around at the rest of the students assembled there, " _all_ of your best interests to return to common rooms immediately, before I lose what’s left of my patience."

Lily once again had to resist the urge to roll her eyes. _What’s left of_ your _patience?_ she wanted to say. _I’m the one who has no patience whatsoever left. You’re not the one who’s been down in that trick step for over three bloody hours with the Hogwarts Circus Act_.

"But Professor, what about dinner?" protested James. _Of course Potter would think of his stomach first_ , thought Lily exasperatedly.

McGonagall’s eyes seemed to almost indiscernibly soften as she looked at James (it was obvious to Lily that he and Sirius were, for some _extremely_ unaccountable reason, McGonagall’s favorite students). "Dinner was over about two hours ago," said McGonagall.

The students groaned. Suddenly, Lily realised that she was absolutely ravenous.

"But," McGonagall said, "I’ll have the house elves send up some food to each of your common rooms for you. Just this once."

"Oh, thank you, Professor!" Sirius exclaimed. He and James literally threw themselves at McGonagall’s feet on the floor (which happens to be quite a dangerous thing to do on a staircase). As a result, McGonagall almost lost her balance. When she had recovered, and everyone had let out the breath they had been collectively holding, McGonagall’s glance became stern once again as she glared down at the two fools at her feet.

"Stand up, Black, Potter." They hurried to their feet immediately, and James at least had the decency to look half-ashamed. "Need I repeat myself? To your common rooms, all of you."

None of the students moved for a moment.

"Now!"

All seven of them jumped and scattered away instantly. Beatrice and Sirius ran the fastest; Beatrice, because she seemed terribly frightened by McGonagall, and Sirius, most likely because of the two Hufflepuffs who seemed intent on marrying him before the night was over. The girls giggle-shrieked, looked at each other, and took off after him excitedly.

Jugson turned around to glare at James and Lily. "I should have taken the twenty points for Slytherin when I should," he grumbled, then snuck away, presumably down to the dungeons to gripe to his friends about how much he hated Gryffindors.

James turned to Lily and quirked his eyebrows, half-smiling. Lily, however, had just been through a terrible ordeal and understandably let out a long-suffering sigh in response. She started up the stairs, and was quite annoyed to find James instantly matching her pace.

She slowed down.

He slowed down.

She sped up.

He sped up.

"Ugh!" cried Lily in frustration. Could nothing go right for her today?

Apparently not. She resigned herself to her fate, which was having to travel up to Gryffindor tower while walking next to James Potter. Not a pleasant fate at all, but after what she had already been through, Lily supposed she could endure.

When they were almost to the seventh floor, James turned to grin at Lily.

"So, Evans, tell me . . . how was your day?"

Lily shrieked and was about to hex him into another time zone when she suddenly felt an odd sensation, like she was moving, but only slightly. She looked around, disoriented.

"The staircase is moving!" cried James gleefully.

_Bloody fucking hell,_ thought Lily Evans, sixth-year Gryffindor prefect _. I fucking hate Hogwarts staircases._


End file.
